Of Dreams And Omens
by shadowglove
Summary: Pre-Movie. Still reeling from personal tragedy, Chloe follows her odd, maddening dreams to a diner in the middle of nowhere..where she meets a miserable pregnant girl, and discovers a new, promising reason to live. And, of course, mysterious stranger.


**Disclaimer: Do not own Smallville/Legion.**

**Short little thing...just because I couldn't get the thought out of my mind.**

**Written for my Paranormal25 Prompt Table. Prompt of the Day #100: Angel Hairs.**

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"You know, smoking isn't good for the baby." Chloe Sullivan hugged herself despite the hot day as she got out of her car. She didn't know what she was doing here, why she was being some madwoman and following some _dreams_ to the Asscrack of Nowhere, USA, but said dreams had been driving her insane, and she'd needed to find some peace of mind.

The pretty, pregnant waitress only looked up at her to give her a glare of disgust. "Really? Good to know." And with that she took in a deeper whiff of the cigarette.

Frowning at the woman, Chloe went into the small diner and sat down, watching curiously as a man argued with the flickering television, giving it a couple of whacks to try and get it to work.

"Don't know why she always does this to me." The man mumbled to himself, giving the television another good smack.

"Maybe because she's _old_." A merry looking, dark skinned man announced from the kitchen, looking amused with what was going on. "I've been telling you to get a new one."

"Nonsense." The first gave the television one last whack, smiling brightly and coming down from his ladder when it finally began to work once more. "I just think she's looking for some attention."

Chloe smiled at them before picking up a menu and looking at what was offered, quickly making up her mind and using the distraction of the menu hiding her face to lose herself in her thoughts once more.

She'd been dreaming of the **Paradise Falls** sign above this diner, and, well, she was here.

What exactly did she have to do now?

Her phone rang, and she dropped the menu in shock, closing her eyes and taking in a deep breath as she went through her pocket and pulled out her phone, wincing when she saw who was calling. "_Lois_."

"Where the _hell_ are you?" Her cousin and best friend wanted to know, furious. "I've been trying to call you for _days_! And you've just disappeared off of the face of the earth and _no one _knows where you are and you're not answering our calls and---!"

The door opened and the surly looking waitress walked back into it, exchanging words with the owner, who was telling her off for smoking while in her condition.

Chloe watched her, not understanding why she felt so drawn to this woman, and why she felt so _pissed_ at her.

Sure, the woman apparently couldn't care less what happened to her child--but there were tons of mothers out there like that.

Why did Chloe feel so strongly about _this one's_ behavior?

"I'm worried about you!" Lois finished her rant. "Chloe, you've been acting so _weird_ lately, you're not able to sleep, and then you just _took _off! I---I was scared that you'd done something stupid!"

Chloe tore her eyes from the large, pregnant stomach and sighed, running a hand over her face. "I---I'm sorry Lo. I've been a very inconsiderate person, I know."

There was a pause on the other end. "Stop saying what you _think_ I want you to say just to appease me." Lois grumbled.

Chloe smiled slightly. "There's no pleasing you, is there?"

Lois sighed. "I'd be very pleased if you just _told me_ what was going on."

"I would---if I knew myself." Chloe admitted. "I--look Lo. Maybe it's just the stress of the situation getting to me, you know? So I've just taken a little road trip. Don't worry about me. I'll be fine and back home before you all get the time to miss me."

"_Hello_. Have you been listening to me? We're _all_ missing you." Lois sounded like she was ready to hit someone. "And we're worried! _Where are you_?"

"You'll just hogtie one of my pilots into sending one of the private jets here if I tell you." Chloe raised an eyebrow. "So no thank you."

Lois was pouting.

That was obvious.

"Well...maybe you need some _company_ on this road trip of yours."

Chloe sighed, bringing a hand to her forehead. "Lo, I---I know you've been worried about me since...since Ollie's death, but I'm dealing with it. Okay? I'm...I'm not going to commit suicide or do anything stupid or reckless." Her gaze went to the diamond engagement ring and it white gold wedding counterpart, resting on her most important figure. "I'll be fine. I just---need this."

"Okay." Lois sighed. "But the moment you feel a need for a Louise to your Thelma...you know how to contact me."

"Yeah, I do." Chloe smiled. "Thanks."

"Take care of yourself, Chlo." Lois sighed, hanging up.

Chloe put away her phone and looked at the menu unseeingly, thinking about everything that'd happened to her these last couple of months to bring her to where she was now.

She felt so _old_ despite only being twenty three.

Then again, she'd become a widow at twenty, and in such a horrible, guilt-wrenching way. She guessed Ollie and her had blamed themselves the most for Jimmy's death, and working together in the Justice League, well, somehow they'd ended up falling in love. For a while they'd tried to deny what was going on between them, but after months of skirting around the palpable tension in the air whenever they were around each other, they'd just given into their feelings...and a couple of months later Ollie had proposed. It wasn't all fluffy and romantic like the relationship between Lois and Clark, but they were both mature adults who wanted the same thing and knew that the other was the only person they could imagine spending their lives with, and that they were the only person they trusted completely, or understood completely.

They'd been a perfect, well-oiled team.

They'd had two weddings.

One was a large, showy thing for Oliver Queen, the multimillionaire and his young, beautiful fiancee, Chloe Sullivan. It'd been a terribly posh event covered by local, national, and some international media, the coverage of the event _ridiculous_. It'd be a tedious hassle, for both Chloe and Oliver, neither quite happy with the limelight, yet knowing that it was important for them to do this.

The second wedding though, it'd made up for everything.

It'd been a small, intimidate affaire, with Lois and Clark once more as their best man/maid of honor respectively...and yet the only other people allowed in this sacred occasion were Dinah, AC, Bart and Victor. _This_ wedding, had been for the Green Arrow and his Watchtower, as they'd pledged before God and Man to love each other till death. It was this simple little gathering that'd had the wonders and magic that the other large, grand and expensive one had lacked.

Chloe Queen had been happy.

She _had_.

And then a mission against Luthorcorp had gone wrong, and Chloe could still remember Oliver whispering to her that he loved her through their earpieces right before the shots rang piercingly in the background.

"What will it be?" The waitress was back, holding a notepad and pencil, looking bored.

"Stake and potatoes, and pepsi with ice." Chloe responded, blinking away her tears, not really looking at the waitress but at her stomach. "How far along are you?"

"Six months." The woman replied, eyes on her notepad.

"So you must know what sex it is." Chloe ventured, remembering that Lana had known the sex of her first child by the fourth month.

"I would if I were interested." The waitress, whose name tag read "Charlie" announced before turning and leaving.

Wow.

That woman was _surly_.

Chloe sighed and rested her head against the glass, looking outside at the vast desert that expanded as far as the eyes could see.

What a depressing place.

She guessed _anyone_ who had to live here would end up being miserable and surly.

Chloe watched her as she went around doing her work, grumbling, complaining, and shooting ugly looks at her stomach.

The blonde frowned.

How could a woman seem to hate her own unborn child so much?

Her hand slid down to her flat stomach, considering, as she had ever since losing Ollie, what it would have been like had she been able to conceive a child for him.

It wasn't that either of them were infertile, but they'd put the 'mission' above everything else, deciding that having children could be talked about later...and yet _later_ had never come. And she'd lost Ollie, the man she adored, she loved...the man who completed her unlike any other ever had or ever could...

...and she'd lost any chance of having his child.

A child...a child might help her deal better with this moment.

A plate was set down hard on the table in front of her.

Chloe looked up at the waitress. "You don't want that child, do you?"

Shock entered those blue eyes as the waitress pulled a honey-colored curl out of her face. "Excuse me?"

"You. Dont. Want. The. Child." Chloe steepled her fingers together, looking down at the stomach before looking up at the woman. "_I_ want a child." She paused. "Would you consider allowing me to adopt him or her?"

The waitress, Charlie, sat down on the chair opposite Chloe's and looked at her in awe. "You---you would _want_ this kid?"

Chloe nodded, using all the business tactics Oliver had taught her. "Yes. I---I recently lost my husband, and I---I felt an affinity for your child from the minute I saw you outside. I would very much like to adopt him or her once you've given birth."

A slow smile began to make its way on the girl's face.

She really _was_ pretty.

"Not only would I like to adopt the child, but I'd like to help you get established, you're very young and deserve to be doing something more than waitressing." She replied, reaching for her bag and looking inside, pulling out one of her cards that stated her as Chloe Queen, Owner of Queen Enterprises, passing it the the waitress. "I'd be willing to pay you three thousand dollars a month for two years to help you with your studies or whatever it is you will need at the time to help you reach whatever your goals in life might be."

The waitress looked down at the card, before bringing a hand to her trembling lips, her eyes getting teary. "I---I can't believe---am I _dreaming_?"

Chloe smiled at her.

She really was only a kid, no older than nineteen.

"No." She made a face. "But until the birth you're going to have to take better care of the baby. No smoking."

The girl smiled and wiped at her tears, nodding.

"What is _that_?"

Chloe looked at the owner of **Paradise Falls**, and then in the direction he was gazing, eyes widening when she saw the golden strands falling from the sky outside.

As one, the few people in the diner hurried out, all looking up in awe as thin, shiny strands of gold just falling done from the sky all around them. They were beautiful, and yet frail and ethereal.

Chloe reached up her hand to the sky, gold curling into her palm, shining brightly, before disappearing in seconds.

"It is not something to be decided upon a moment's whim...to be a mother."

She turned at the soft, masculine voice, tinting with something like a british accent and yet not. There was a man leaning against the building that she hadn't seen before, dressed in a black cape despite the heat of the desert beating upon them.

She hadn't seen him before...in the diner or outside of it when she'd driven up.

"I know." She replied, wondering when he'd eavesdropped on the conversation she'd had with Charlie. "But I know, somehow, deep down inside of my heart, that this was something I was meant to do."

He watched her curiously. "With motherhood comes great perils and sacrifices."

"You will find, sir, that I'm not a stranger to perils or sacrifices." She replied, taking in a deep breath, trying to forget the sound of Oliver's whispered words of love before the sound of gunshots rang out...silencing that voice forever.

The stranger watched her contemplatively before nodding. "May God give you the strength then." And with that he pushed away from the wall and began to walk away.

"This is...an omen of good." The dark-skinned man with the hook...the cook...spoke.

Chloe turned turned him, smiling, before turning back to the stranger and blinking when there was no one there.

The blonde narrowed her eyes, turning around, the stranger having vanished.

But _how_?

The golden strands continued to rain down on them, bathing her with its radiance.

Had she hallucinated the whole thing?

Was her mind giving out on her due to all of these nights without proper sleep?

The falling gold ceased, vanishing off of the ground and everywhere it touched...as if it'd never fallen.

Chloe went to brush her hair from her face, when she realized that the strands that'd fallen upon her where still there, sticking to her. "Why are they still here?"

She tried to brush them off, but they were sticking to her quite adamantly.

And then...and then they dissolved into nothing.

Chloe frowned, shaking her head, before looking up at the others as they made their way back into the diner.

Charlie was excitedly speaking with the man who'd been whacking the television, the man sending Chloe surprised looks.

Obviously the waitress was telling her boss about the opportunity Chloe was offering her.

Chloe smiled slightly.

Somehow..._somehow_ that feeling of urgency was gone, that terribly sensation lifted from her chest...and she truly believed that _this_ was the reason she'd been directed to come here to **Paradise Falls**, despite how corny that might sound.

The blonde took one last look at the desert behind them, before taking a step towards the diner, wondering why she felt that something more monumental than she could ever understand, had just happened.

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